Ben & Jerry’s 30 Rock Ice Cream Tastes Just Like 30 Rock

Revealed in a startling pagan ritual where druids wrapped a sacred minotaur horn in the entrails of slave children and blew trumpets of their bones: the new Ben and Jerry’s flavor is “LIZ LEMON (&Blueberry) Fro Yo Greek Yogurt ™!!”…That sentence was mostly lies but the 30 Rock B&J flavor is the perfect metaphor for 30 Rock the Show which I will get into in a minute.

Actually the totally pagan-free revelation was at a bar down the street from Rockefeller Plaza (possibly by law since nobody from 30 Rock seemed to be there…does Lorne have a restraining order against product tie-ins at this point? I wouldn’t be surprised.) where a medium smattering of 30 Rock fans dressed as characters and a large smattering of rapacious bloggers who couldn’t get into the actual 30 Rock Finale party certainly happening in Rock Center itself gathered to listen to Mssr. Jerry make the flavor announcement, view the final Episode, and get their picture taken with Jim Gaffigan who has no 30 Rock connection whatsoever and seemed sort of befuddled by all extant concepts except that of Free Ice Cream. Mssr. Ben apparently was back in Vermont defacing currency for political reasons, because it was Thursday.

On to the metaphors! 30 Rock is a good show. The ice cream (the Greek Frozen Yogurt) was good. There’s not a lot of emotional depth to either one. It’s not decadently complex like Phish Food (or Arrested Development). It’s not boring like Strawberry (which has a notoriously fake laugh track). It’s not heartily realistic like Cookies & Cream (Parks and Rec). More than anything else it reminds you that that you are eating something that isn’t ice cream (it’s Frozen Greek Yogurt). It has great hair (like the Greeks). Jerry said “There’s a twist of lavender in there!” (He also said to a young couple next to me during the viewing “Have you eaten any Liz Lemon yet? Ha ha ha!” Jerry is a cool guy, for a billionaire.) I couldn’t taste the lavender any more than I can remember what most of the references in the second season of the Simpsons are referring to–additional metaphor: 30 Rock is a live action The Simpsons. I could taste blueberry, but what I felt in this yogurt was the performance of ice cream, just as in 30 Rock what you feel is the performace of being in show business. Boom.

Since this century began (as ostentatiously as this paragraph) discerning audiences have grown more and more comfortable relating to fictional characters who are employed as performers. Older sitcoms have starred actors essentially playing themselves (and 30 Rock is also very close to Lucy and Dick Van Dyke etc whatever, stop derailing shit) but now now now now when we sense, have sensed since birth, the close-up lens of lives lived in acting onstage, on reality shows, and especially online, we empathize strongly with those engaged in creating a performance as much as we do with more “realistic” shows like the Office. Why else would every comedy be an inexplicable documentary (even Modern Family which has not even a single nod as to why there’s a fucking camera following these assholes around)?

The Meta-ness of 30 Rock is often commented on, as a parody of a show that parodied things starring actors playing characters based on themselves (but who was Jenna a parody of, really? Rachel Dratch was supposed to play that role but Amy Poehler was the star during Tina Fey’s run on SNL and she is blonde, I rest my case, even though she is awesome and not horrible, never mind case dismissed). But the show’s greatest accomplishment was probably being able to stay on the air and make money despite low ratings by making fun of product placements. TGS is on a crazy parody of NBC, so of course they’re pumping real NBC shows and Snapple–its a joke!–Verizon–not Cabletown!–slipped probiotically into the very nature of the show. Metafiction = dollars. Meanwhile as average Americans’ daily lives more and more resemble Grace Under Fire–broke, addicted, unglamorous—we identify more and more with the performers on TV rather than the characters they portray.

The crowd of people dressed as various 30 Rock characters cheered at strange parts of the final Ep as it aired, mostly shit like Liz wearing PJs during the day. That was pretty Meta, a group of Lemons (and a male/female Miss Piggy/Jenna duo who obviously won the grand prize: free ice cream for a year) cheering for being too devoted to your high-paying career to take care of yourself. It’s only a matter of time before we’ll be identifying with a show about actors playing characters on a show starring characters named after themselves, nested like matryoshka dolls in a recursive set of networks and Hollywood signs. Anyone who managed to catch the insane Wanda Sykes show “the Wanda Sykes Show” already knows that particularly unheimlich valley.

Anyway isn’t it a little weird for Ben and Jerry’s to be celebrating a show with a new flavor as it goes off the air? What the upside for anyone aside from the affiliates running three old seasons of 30 Rock concurrently everyone on earth at all times? As the party wound down I asked the two Jennas if they really planned to eat all that Free Ice Cream or if they’d start strong, really enjoy it, eat it every week, then maybe forget about it for a few months, then pick it up and binge on it when they got depressed, then feel kind of negative about the experience, “yeah, great, you’ve got a million chucks fine I get it, barf” but still tell everyone how much they love it, as their friends go “Well I can eat it every now and then but it’s too over-the-top. I prefer cookies.” and then it’s over and you miss it a little bit but not that much, or what? They didn’t get the metaphor. Probably too much lavender.

30 Rock ended with a St. Elsewhere riff, as Future Kenneth, now president of NBC, greenlights the thing itself–a show called 30 Rock based on the performers in 30 Rock who performed TGS the parody of SNL. No one at the bar was dressed as Kenneth, Kenneth stopped being funny sometime in 2009. I went home and watched The Office episode after 30 Rock which alluded for the first time to the fact that there is a “crew” filming the Office for a fictional doc called “The Office,” as Pam seems to be forming a relationship with a boom mic operator. Maybe I was drunk on lactobacillus bulgaricus, but I found that a lot more moving than any wacky rabbit hole dive. Pam is nothing like Jenna Fischer, she’s a normal person thrust onto our screens, and she’s changed by being constantly observed, sometimes for better, usually not. I ate a bunch of cold Papa John’s breadsticks and passed out on the couch in my own filth, and the crowd went wild!

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Norm Macdonald is best known for his 4 year stint on Saturday Night live where Chevy Chase noted he was the best anchor to ever grace the chair. He is

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Norm Macdonald is best known for his 4 year stint on Saturday Night live where Chevy Chase noted he was the best anchor to ever grace the chair. He is a favorite guest on Late Night shows, having performed the final stand-up set ever on David Letterman. Mr. Letterman referred to Norm as the funniest man in the world. Conan O’Brien also lists Norm as his favorite guest. After leaving SNL, Norm starred in 2 movies, one being the cult classic “Dirty Work” and also appears in many Adam Sandler films, including his first “Billy Madison”, where Norm played Adam’s best friend. Norm also starred in 3 television series. This year he became a judge on “Last Comic Standing” as well as portraying Colonel Sanders in an avant-garde Series of spots for KFC. His tour-de force anti comedy roast of Bob Saget became an instant classic, as well as the five- minute “Moth Joke” on Conan which received a full one-minute laugh. These, though, are only experiments Norm tries out on TV appearances.It is still Norm’s stand-up which is his pure gift. His 2011 Comedy Special “Me Doing Stand-up” was hailed by The Guardian as one of the best Stand-up Specials of all time and Comedy Central name him in their top 100 comedians of all time. Norm retires all material he has used on specials and guarantees that no two shows will ever be identical. If you know Norm Macdonald, but do not know his stand-up, you do not know him. He is a stand-up comedian who must be seen to be believed.

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In a rare evening program, multimedia artist Martha Rosler, currently the subject of a major retrospective at the Jewish Museum in New York, discusses her practice with the Gallery's James

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In a rare evening program, multimedia artist Martha Rosler, currently the subject of a major retrospective at the Jewish Museum in New York, discusses her practice with the Gallery’s James Meyer, curator of art, 1945–1974. The program will be streamed live at nga.gov/live.

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The first Houses release in five years, Drugstore Heaven, marks a major artistic shift for L.A.-based songwriter/producer Dexter Tortoriello. Abandoning the heady concepts of his previous records for some

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The first Houses release in five years, Drugstore Heaven, marks a major artistic shift for L.A.-based songwriter/producer Dexter Tortoriello. Abandoning the heady concepts of his previous records for some of his tightest songwriting yet, Tortoriello is embracing the most fascinating character in his musical universe: himself.In 2010, Houses released their full-length debut All Night via Lefse Records — a Portland, Oregon-based label who signed the band two weeks after Tortoriello shared the project’s first single via Tumblr. The following year, Diplo tracked him down after finding his more darkly-charged project Dawn Golden on Bandcamp. In addition to signing Dawn Golden to Mad Decent, Diplo began bringing Tortoriello into co-writing sessions, which soon led to his work as a writer/featured vocalist for such artists as Martin Garrix, Ryan Hemsworth, and What So Not.

The past five years have been undeniably busy for Tortoriello. After relocating from Chicago to LA, he released Houses’ sophomore album A Quiet Darkness via Downtown Records in 2013, along with a debut full-length as Dawn Golden the following spring. A slate of high-profile remixes for Major Lazer, Kings of Leon and Odesza established him as a dance world heavyweight, while writing and producing for artists like Lil Yachty, Kali Uchis, and Kiiara refined his songcraft. And while he initially compartmentalized his creative efforts, Drugstore Heaven finds him drawing from these experiences, creating Houses’ most fully realized and complexly detailed output to date – a selection of songs matching graceful experimentation with raw emotion and unprecedented vulnerability.

“All of the Houses material to date has been very escapist,” Tortoriello says. “You can fall into a spell where real life is something you tune in and out of, something you feel no authorship over. I’ve focused my efforts over the last few years on building and reinforcing things I don’t wish to escape from: relationships, groups, creative outlets, ideas, workflows. I found a much deeper type of freedom in taking ownership over my life and committing myself to really living it.”

Drugstore Heaven delivers a dynamically textured sound partly shaped by Tortoriello’s exploration of rave and drum-and-bass artists from the late ’90s. “At the time all that stuff was coming out, electronic music was just being discovered, so there was this really pioneering sense of what was possible,” he says. The lead single “Fast Talk,” featuring backing vocals of longtime Houses member Megan Messina, unfolds in hazy rhythms formed from chopped-up breakbeats and live percussion from timpani, glockenspiel, and a couple bottles of antidepressant medication. “That song is meant to be a memorial for a group of friends I had back in my late teens,” explains Tortoriello, adding, “Thematically it’s almost like a ballet where you keep driving around the same blocks, and people start disappearing from the car because they’re going to jail or dying.”

Growing up outside Chicago, Tortoriello first started making music in his early teens, mostly by attempting to emulate the drum-and-bass-meets-speed-metal freakouts of Atari Teenage Riot. (“I’d record myself playing drums onto cassette, then double-speed the tape and play synthesizers over it,” he recalls. “It was an abomination.”). Sonic references to his teenage experimentation make melancholic rave workout “Years” all the more poignant, as Tortoriello examines the anxiety of ageing and the ennui of early adulthood in his lyrics.

On Drugstore Heaven, embracing the personal also has its joyful side. The EP’s punchiest moment, “Left Alone,” emerges as bright and bouncy anthem celebrating the bliss of solitude, while closer “Pink Honey” is a lavishly romantic number built on ethereal vocals, delicate guitar tones, and luminous synth. “I was trying to turn that one into a sweeping love song, like something out of Casablanca,” says Tortoriello.

For Tortoriello, the deepest achievement of Drugstore Heaven lies in building a body of work that feels entirely true to the world in his head. “In the past I’ve felt self-conscious about the person I put forth in my music, but these songs feel very reflective of who I really am,” he says. Being this open still feels new to him, but for the listener, it’s a rewarding glimpse into the mind of a vital and forward-thinking artist.

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The Comet is Coming is the soundtrack to an imagined apocalypse. In the aftermath of widespread sonic destruction what sounds remain? Who will lead the survivors to new sound worlds?

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The Comet is Coming is the soundtrack to an imagined apocalypse. In the aftermath of widespread sonic destruction what sounds remain? Who will lead the survivors to new sound worlds? Who will chart the new frontier?

In a warehouse somewhere in London 2013 a meeting would take place between three musical cosmonauts. They would pool their energies to build a vessel powerful enough to transport any party into outer space. King Shabaka (Sons of Kemet, Melt Yourself Down), Danalogue and Betamax (Soccer96).

Together they chart a path based on the encoded language of Sun Ra, Frank Zappa, Jimi Hendrix and the BBC Radiophonic Workshops from which the band’s name emerged.

It is after the end of the world, the stage is a spacecraft, the mic is an accelerator. brace yourself for The Comet is Coming.

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There’s a great scene in The Last Waltz – the documentary about The Band’s final concert – where director Martin Scorsese is discussing music with drummer/singer/mandolin player Levon Helm. Helm

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There’s a great scene in The Last Waltz – the documentary about The Band’s final concert – where director Martin Scorsese is discussing music with drummer/singer/mandolin player Levon Helm. Helm says, “If it mixes with rhythm, and if it dances, then you’ve got a great combination of all those different kinds of music: country, bluegrass, blues music, show music…”To which Scorsese, the inquisitive interviewer, asks, “What’s it called, then?”“Rock & roll!”Clearly looking for a more specific answer, but realizing that he isn’t going to get one, Marty laughs. “Rock & roll…”Well, that’s the way it is sometimes: musicians play music, and don’t necessarily worry about where it gets filed. It’s the writers, record labels, managers, etc., who tend to fret about what “kind” of music it is.And like The Band, the members of Railroad Earth aren’t losing sleep about what “kind” of music they play – they just play it. When they started out in 2001, they were a bunch of guys interested in playing acoustic instruments together. As Railroad Earth violin/vocalist Tim Carbone recalls, “All of us had been playing in various projects for years, and many of us had played together in different projects. But this time, we found ourselves all available at the same time.”Songwriter/lead vocalist Todd Sheaffer continues, “When we started, we only loosely had the idea of getting together and playing some music. It started that informally; just getting together and doing some picking and playing. Over a couple of month period, we started working on some original songs, as well as playing some covers that we thought would be fun to play.” Shortly thereafter, they took five songs from their budding repertoire into a studio and knocked out a demo in just two days. Their soon-to-be manager sent that demo to a few festivals, and – to the band’s surprise – they were booked at the prestigious Telluride Bluegrass Festival before they’d even played their first gig. This prompted them to quickly go in and record five more songs; the ten combined tracks of which made up their debut album, “The Black Bear Sessions.”That was the beginning of Railroad Earth’s journey: since those early days, they’ve gone on to release five more critically acclaimed studio albums and one hugely popular live one called, “Elko.” They’ve also amassed a huge and loyal fanbase who turn up to support them in every corner of the country, and often take advantage of the band’s liberal taping and photo policy. But Railroad Earth bristle at the notion of being lumped into any one “scene.” Not out of animosity for any other artists: it’s just that they don’t find the labels very useful. As Carbone points out, “We use unique acoustic instrumentation, but we’re definitely not a bluegrass or country band, which sometimes leaves music writers confused as to how to categorize us. We’re essentially playing rock on acoustic instruments.”Ultimately, Railroad Earth’s music is driven by the remarkable songs of front-man, Todd Sheaffer, and is delivered with seamless arrangements and superb musicianship courtesy of all six band members. As mandolin/bouzouki player John Skehan points out, “Our M.O. has always been that we can improvise all day long, but we only do it in service to the song. There are a lot of songs that, when we play them live, we adhere to the arrangement from the record. And other songs, in the nature and the spirit of the song, everyone knows we can kind of take flight on them.” Sheaffer continues: “The songs are our focus, our focal point; it all starts right there. Anything else just comments on the songs and gives them color. Some songs are more open than others. They ‘want’ to be approached that way – where we can explore and trade musical ideas and open them up to different territories. But sometimes it is what the song is about.”So: they can jam with the best of them and they have some bluegrass influences, but they use drums and amplifiers (somewhat taboo in the bluegrass world). What kind of music is it then? Mandolin/vocalist John Skehan offers this semi-descriptive term: “I always describe it as a string band, but an amplified string band with drums.” Tim Carbone takes a swing: “We’re a Country & Eastern band! ” Todd Sheaffer offers “A souped-up string band? I don’t know. I’m not good at this.” Or, as a great drummer/singer/mandolin player with an appreciation for Americana once said: “Rock & roll!”

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Elizabeth Alexander and Manthia Diawara in person

Two artists — painter Ficre Ghebreyesus (1962 – 2012) from Asmara in Eritrea and filmmaker Manthia Diawara from Bamako in Mali — meet metaphorically in this program focusing on their work. Political refugees, activists, scholars, artists, and storytellers, both men settled in the United States and found themselves working odd jobs, joining the African American community of poets, and hunkering down within their own artistic practice. Ficre Ghebreyesus’s epic painting The Sardine Fisherman’s Funeral centers on the abebuu adekai, the figurative coffin of the Ga people in Ghana, replete with symbols, historical references, and Eritrean iconography expressing a depth of feeling for the power of the sea. Manthia Diawara’s film An Opera of the World (2017), based on the African opera Bintou Were, mines the Malian filmmaker’s own migration experience against the backdrop of recent tragedies on the Mediterranean Sea. Diawara’s film features contemporary philosophers and employs footage of refugees in exodus, probing cinema’s power to bear witness. Manthia Diawara and Elizabeth Alexander — poet, essayist, playwright, scholar, and president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation — discuss and contrast both of these works (Ghebreyesus’s painting and Diawara’s film) following the screening. (Approximately 100 minutes)